DiGiCo SD10 delivers music for NHL coverage

This year, for the first time, the National Hockey League (NHL) programmed four regular season games into outdoor venues in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, scheduling the 2014 NHL Stadium Series between the previously established NHL Winter Classic and NHL Heritage Classic series of outdoor games. Tasked with mixing the live musical entertainment at the games in all three NHL series for broadcast on the NBC networks, Ron Reaves called on production provider Clair Nashville to supply a DiGiCo SD10 digital audio mixing console with two SD-Racks.

Reaves, who mixed the music and fed it to NBC’s broadcast production engineer, who added it into the audio mix, reports that the DiGiCo system’s Optocore fiber optic transport capabilities were critical to its successful operation at the Winter Classic. “As it turned out, it was the right choice, because I was 2,000 feet from the stage,” says Reaves, noting that alternative brand consoles that utilise Ethernet over Cat5 cable are capable of transmitting digital audio over distance of only 330 feet or less. “The Clair Brothers splitters plugged into the 56-input SD-Racks each handled 40 inputs, so I was landing 80 inputs.”

Among other features, Reaves praised the EQ, compressors and other processing built into the console. “There’s not an audio problem out there that you can’t solve with this console. And it is fantastically easy to use,” he says.